A reference interval is not a target, and a result outside one is not a diagnosis
Two sources of noise sit under every number: how reproducible the assay is, and how much the analyte varies within the same person on the same day.
Lipids
Lipid movement during weight loss and on incretin therapy, and the difference between the two.
Why your laboratory interval differs from the one in the textbook
A twelve-analyte panel in a perfectly healthy person has roughly even odds of producing at least one flagged result.
What the trials monitored, and what that implies about routine practice
Timing is the whole of the post-cessation panel: draw it too early and it measures the treatment period.
Micronutrient monitoring: which panel, how often, and on whose evidence
A monitoring schedule requires evidence about incidence. For this population, that evidence does not exist.
What a low result means when intake has halved
Reduced intake is a plausible mechanism for deficiency. Reduced absorption is not, and the two are conflated in most of the advice.
HbA1c and its lag: what a result three months old is telling you
The assay is not the problem. The interpretation of a lagging integral as a current measurement is the problem.
A guide to the results that will resolve themselves
A substantial proportion of the abnormal results generated during rapid weight loss are consequences of the weight loss rather than findings about the person.
What a low result means when intake has halved
What the trials measured, which in the case of micronutrients is very little.
The glycaemic panel before treatment: what is worth measuring and when
The assay is not the problem. The interpretation of a lagging integral as a current measurement is the problem.
Reading HbA1c in the presence of anaemia
HbA1c integrates roughly three months of glycaemia with the most recent weeks weighted most heavily. Almost every misreading of it is a misreading of that weighting.
What the trials monitored, and what that implies about routine practice
Every additional analyte raises the probability of a flagged result and lowers the average information content of the panel.
Measuring more frequently generates more flags and not more information
The argument for a baseline panel is that it makes every subsequent result interpretable. The argument against frequent monitoring is that noise accumulates faster than…
Fructosamine, glycated albumin, and the shorter window nobody orders
The alternatives with shorter windows, what they measure, and why they are rarely ordered.
Thiamine and the vomiting patient
What the trials measured, which in the case of micronutrients is very little.
The out-of-range flag is a statistical convention with a printer attached
A flag is a probability statement about a population. It is not a statement about the person holding the printout.
The out-of-range flag is a statistical convention with a printer attached
A flag is a probability statement about a population. It is not a statement about the person holding the printout.
Falling ferritin is not always falling iron
A substantial proportion of the abnormal results generated during rapid weight loss are consequences of the weight loss rather than findings about the person.
HbA1c and its lag: what a result three months old is telling you
HbA1c integrates roughly three months of glycaemia with the most recent weeks weighted most heavily. Almost every misreading of it is a misreading of that weighting.
The out-of-range flag is a statistical convention with a printer attached
Two sources of noise sit under every number: how reproducible the assay is, and how much the analyte varies within the same person on the same day.
A reference interval is not a target, and a result outside one is not a diagnosis
Two sources of noise sit under every number: how reproducible the assay is, and how much the analyte varies within the same person on the same day.